Submit: guest post tips & tricks

Submit

Tips and tricks for writing a guest post for In Search Of Basho.

Hi!

Thanks for expressing an interest in contributing to the In Search of Basho blog!! We’re really excited about doing something unusual with the blog. The comic deals with a lot of issues surrounding mortality and the search for inner peace. As such we’d like to bring these topics even more into focus by featuring contributions from interesting people. People, hopefully, like yourself!

Straight upfront: this is not a paid gig. All we have to give is our abundant love and appreciation.

Below is a guideline. Sorry that it’s so long! This is just a collection of answers to all those questions which keep coming up.

Comic background

The comic is going to run for one year. It launched on 1st June 2016 and is planned to end on 31st May 2017. It will run once per week, hence 52 comics in total.

The main character (“Basho”) discovers in the first comic that he has only one year left to live. Motivated by this, he begins a journey around his native Japan. Knowing that he will never return home.

The comic texts are all written in haiku. They are inspired by a lot of stoic and epicurean thought.

Blog

We want to create a little vault of beautiful perspectives on mortality to run alongside the comic. A kind of “thoughts on death” treasure chest. We hope it will offer a chance for the contributors and readers to reflect on new perspectives. Some of which may help them come to terms to things that they're struggling with.

Inspiration questions

Some of our earlier contributors found the following questions helpful. Feel free to write about any of these, or any related mortality-theme which inspires you:

What does death mean to you?

What was your earliest contact with death?

When did you become aware of your own mortality? How has this affected you?

What would you do if you realised that you only had one year left to live?

If you died tomorrow, what advice would you like to pass on to your earlier living self?

Please don’ts:

We won’t be accepting any pieces which contain racism, sexism, bigotry, or any other militant-[anything]-isms.

Similarly, we won't be accepting any pieces which are a blatant attempt to sell products or services. We are happy to carry a link to your personal website in the bio section though.

Please do’s:

The contributions can be in any form. We've had autobiographical pieces. Poetry. We're still hoping for some flash fiction. We'll consider anything, as long as it is authentic.

We'd love if you make your contribution as introspective as possible. We feel that that’s where the darkest juices lie.

There's no word limit, either minimum or maximum.

Please also send us a bio, including (where applicable) any personal website or other links which you would like us to link to!